If you have ever wondered what would happen if Jack Black took on the Bible, Year One is your answer. Covering events beginning with forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and ending with a farewell to the still-standing Sodom, it actually deals with more than just the first year of Biblical history. Easily sliding under its PG-13 rating with fairly standard Black-Apatow bathroom/sexual humor paired with the laughable awkwardness of cultural collision, its comedy is nothing new. But although it struggles to even best this month's earlier stinker Land of the Lost, and its Biblical revisionist tales definitely detract from their primary source, at the very least, Year One offers an interesting take on God, us, and the world we share.

When Year One begins, we meet its main characters Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) as they go about daily life within their hunter-gatherer tribe. As we immediately see, Zed is about the worst hunter (and gatherer) in the entire village, and Oh, while skilled and intelligent, is pretty much invisible to all but Zed. "There's got to be more to life than this!" proclaims Zed. And so, although it is the one thing they have always been forbidden to do, he takes a bite from one of the glowing apples hanging on the Tree of Knowledge. His thought: with the knowledge from the tree, he will finally be able to rise above the imbeciles around him. The reality: other than getting Zed and Oh kicked out of their tribe, the apple has absolutely no effect. And the challenge that is set into motion: one which asks if God, His prohibitions, and His commands actually have anything to them at all.

The next Bible story on their timeline-defying journey: the murder of Abel (Paul Rudd) by Cain (David Cross). Zed and Oh enter the scene, Cain and Abel immediately begin fighting, and as Zed and Oh watch, Cain bludgeons Abel to death. The funniest part: Cain's "remorseful" cries of "What have I done?", "What have I done again?", and "What have I continued to do?" as he delivers one final blow after another after another. The serious behind the funny: the truth that many of us mirror the very same series of false remorse and repetition of sin all the time.

After being sold into slavery by Cain and escaping, Zed and Oh next meet Abraham (Hank Azaria) and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)&ellips; as Abraham is preparing to sacrifice Isaac on the mountain. Short and sweet, the scene begins as Abraham tells the confused Isaac that they are just playing a game and that God will provide. When Zed and Oh happen upon the scene and Abraham asks them if they are sent from the Lord, a simple "yes" from Zed stops the whole thing. And as we watch Abraham give Zed's words the same weight as the command he supposedly received from God, the question that remains on the altar is: How well do we really know or interpret what is a sign or command from God? And how easily might we accept something that is not just because we want it to be so?

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